Letters to the Editor

I'm so tired of road bikers. They holler "Share the road," but when they ride in their little packs the last thing they care about is sharing.
You bikers ride six or seven deep across the middle of the road, completely blocking traffic. We are forced to swerve into on coming traffic to avoid you. If we honk, you laugh. Some of us have things to do and places to be. Sorry if that interferes with your leisure time, but please shows some consideration to what the roads are primarily for: cars.

The next time the Source asks people on the street about racism, you might want to ask one or two members of a racial minority who might have experienced racism and pure hatred first-hand. You might get some more informed opinions.
I am an Asian-American. For those new to the lingo, that means I was born in the US and my parents are from China. I have experienced racial prejudice and racism as long as I can remember.
On Saturday, March 29, I was exiting my vehicle on Bend's oh-so-trendy and affluent Westside. A man I have never seen before in my life, who was stopped at a gas station, said something about shooting "commies," pointed at me with an imaginary rifle and pretended to shoot me. I almost called the police. He was dead serious. THAT is what racism is.

Shall it be the function of the state to spread sexually transmitted diseases?
In its Hardwick decision the Supreme Court inadvertently assigned to the function of the state the transmission of sexual diseases.
Writing for the majority, Sandra Day O'Connor asserted that the state should continue, by criminal sanction, to uphold anti-sodomy laws to suppress homosexual sexual activity to impede the spread of venereal diseases. Consequently, to escape detection homosexuals continued to find it easier to conceal a thousand brief, anonymous encounters than a single long-term relationship.
The court learned nothing from the failure of the Inquisition to eradicate homosexuality. So overwhelmingly powerful are biological drives that compel organisms. Not even the fear of the most gruesome of tortures could destroy the human appetite of sexual attraction and involvement.

A few weeks ago the Source reported on the status of Bend's last independent video store, Westside Video. I was reminded of the importance of such small businesses when my daughter and I recently rode our bikes to Westside Video to rent a movie. Locally owned businesses such as Devores Good Foods, Ranch Records, The Book Barn, Westside Video and others add diversity, independence and flavor to a commercial market that could soon be made up of nothing but sterile, national chains such as Blockbuster, Barnes & Noble and other big box stores.

When you placed "Third Street Moses" in the paper, did you take into consideration:
* The individual's history and who he is.
* The fact that he did not consent to his photo being taken.
For those of us who are familiar with this individual, it is disappointing that the Source would lower itself to mocking.

When I saw that Bend Living had released its first "green issue" last month, I must say I found a great deal of irony. When you have a magazine that mainly deals with a) the burgeoning resort communities that cut down our beautiful landscapes, b) small boutique stores downtown that ship in their overpriced imported goods from who knows where, c) advertisements for seven local car dealerships, and d) generally, in my opinion, encourages unnecessary, excessive consumerism, you have to chuckle a little when they release a green issue on more than 150 pages of thick, glossy paper.

Do we really need to domesticate another wild species? Is keeping a herd of pet elk as cute and harmless as it seems? Consider this:
Chronic wasting disease (mad cow disease for deer and elk) has been spread from elk farm to elk farm and sometimes from elk farm to wild elk in over a dozen states in the last 15 years. CWD is always fatal, and you can't even tell if an animal has it until it dies. Meanwhile, it's contagious for two or three years or more before the animal dies. It's nasty, and the risk to our wildlife is too great to contemplate.
Saskatchewan spent $20 million eliminating CWD from 38 elk farms. Wisconsin has spent over $12 million trying to eradicate CWD from its white-tailed deer herds. These are taxpayer dollars.

In December 2007 I got an e-mail from the folks at MoveOn.org asking if I would be willing to deliver a petition (signed by over 900 residents of our congressional district) to Congressman Greg Walden. I am not a joiner, and I don't agree with everything MoveOn says, but I resisted my own reluctance and agreed to do it, because I believed in what the petition said.
MoveOn sent me the names of several other people in our area who had agreed to meet at the congressman's office on Dec. 13.
I called the congressman and reached his receptionist, who told me the office would be closed that particular day. I asked her if they would agree to at least have one of the staff stop by the office and receive the petition on behalf of the signers. She said, "No."

The reason Hillary Clinton has such negative image problems is that when she was the First Lady in Little Rock she helped pass legislation to improve the ailing state school system and extend education for 4-year-olds. This hit the big boys in Arkansas right where it hurt them most, in their pocket books. Their hatred of her became vitriolic and they formed a Republican committee to taint and discredit her image.
While our homeless veterans and mentally ill are eating out of garbage cans to survive, right-wing Christian radio has spent millions to billions of dollars duping hard-working Americans to vote time and again with the wealthy, who are laughing all the way to their banks. Newt Gingrich suggested to Rush Limbaugh and other mean-spirited conservatives to repeat "words" like sick, pathetic, welfare, crisis, traitor, cheat, steal, bizarre and radical over and over to brainwash their audience. Let's not forget that during this time Newt was having an affair and served his wife divorce papers while she was recovering from her illness. Read Molly Ivins' books, god rest her witty soul. I am so sorry that she is not here to witness what is happening.

Your sidebar on people who don't pay taxes exemplifies the incredible job of brainwashing our society has undergone.
No one should be paying federal income taxes.
The 16th Amendment was never properly ratified.
The Supreme Court had previously ruled a central bank was unconstitutional prior to the creation of the current Federal Reserve Bank in 1913. Since the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified the IRS is illegal. There is no law that says we the people have to pay income taxes.